"The bill gives school districts flexibility in deciding what to include in the lessons and at what grades students would receive them.

But starting in the 2013-14 school year, it would prohibit districts and the California Board of Education from using textbooks or other instructional materials that reflect adversely on gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

California law already requires schools to cover the contributions to the state and nation of women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor."

You want to know what the problem is? The CA legislature can hardly function. There are significant pressing financial and budget problems in California right now that are of utmost importance to the state, those that live here and business that provide employment here. With all that... the Governor and state legislature is focusing time on THIS ?! It's like - you have to be kidding me.

Andy, you can't be serious. You didn't see the latest budget negotiations in DC? It doesn't matter what they focus on. The important issues are up for sale to the highest bidder. Anyone with half a brain could have cut more money from the budget without pissing off the American people or impacting them in any significant way. Doesn't it occur to people that there's a reason why the easy cuts are not even on the table?

Who is going to argue against the following....

- Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq. No matter how long we stay it is likely to fall as soon as we leave. Politicians have been throwing out the "New World Order" cliche for decades implying that somehow western moral code and a system of justice can be brought to all people. Wake up, it ain't happening. And our resources to carry it through are gone. If the Taliban retake Afghanistan, so be it. If they allow Al Qaeda camps to flourish, we've got bombers and satellites.

- Cut the defense budget by 1/3. Doesn't everyone realize that our defense is way beyond what anyone in the rest of the worlds spends. Scale back the foriegn bases and econmize.

- Cut FEMA, FDA, and Homeland security in half. All of these agencies provide very little and are incredibly wasteful. The FDA is in the pocket of the major corporations who basically write the laws governing our safely. The FDA is little more than a corporate shill attacking the rights of American's. The FDA makes laws to improve our safety when no safety issue existed. FEMA gives money to states and municipalities that aren't even in a state of emergency.

- Cut all govt agencies by 10-20% and mandate the cuts come from the top down, Instead of just firing low level workers.

Yes, Medicare is a huge unfunded liability. And yes, the govt is in the pocket of the whole health industry. Health care is probably the only real difficult issue, so let's not pretend that the others are tough. SS is also an unfunded liability. Not so much that it's really unfunded, but because the govt has raided the trust fund and has no means to pay it back. The US will pay China before it's pays it's own citizens the money it took. These are real issues. The rest isn't.

Wake up and stop arguing over politics and politicians. It's like arguing over who's s**t stinks the worst instead of flushing the toilet.

Fixing a state's budget is far more difficult than fixing the federal budget because the state's don't print money and the state's don't spend tons of money that benefit no one (except corporations) like the fed does. If the fed can't negotiate the budget in a minimally plausible way, then what chance is a state going to?

John, with all respect (and I do), I've long since stopped buying either/both major party's crap that they sell. The whole bunch of them take the predictable same old stances, get the bases all riled up and distracted and then keep sending us the bill.

It just gets very tiring while us regular folks are trying to make a living & put kids through college.

IMHO, this will only make things worse by further singling groups out for special attention. Maybe if teachers were allowed to discipline bullies--without having to worry about a lawyer trying to sue them--then things could be better in the classroom. My old coach would line bullies out in the boxing ring. Ironically, after "going" a few rounds with someone bigger, a bully can turn into a more humble person. Maybe the show []Bully Beatdown [/ should do a tour in public schools. I compare the classroom to the poor police officer trying to do his/her job. It's sad that public schools have so many problems but the public loves liberals these days, so look for this curriculum to be added to your school in the near future, especially if the Dems. win the Senate in 2012.

I presume this insane law was made to stop racism and/or prejudice. Well you know what, this is America and it's part of our basic rights to be racism and prejudice if we want to. If these socialists want to end racism and prejudice, stop giving preferential treatment to minorities or various groups or categories of people. End affirmative action and the like. To remove the gay issue, don't give any government recognition or tax break to married couples. If government is out of marriage, it doesn't matter who does what with who. There would no longer be incentives for this and it wouldn't be a government issue but a church issue as for gays finding a church that will marry them.

Quite honestly I don't give a damn is Joe is blowing Jimmy, it's none of my damn business. I think it's gross, but I think plenty of things are gross. I think pickles are gross, but you know what? I don't eat them and that's the end of it. This is just expansion of government into more facets of our lives and is completely unnecessary. We need less government, not more. No more new laws should be made until enough laws are repealed and agencies/departments decommissioned so that there is a balanced budget... On state and federal level. I have my preferences for which unconstitutional agencies and programs need to be eliminated but quite honestly I don't care at this point if they take a shotgun approach and just draw laws/agencies/programs out of a hat until there is a surplus and a plan to pay off the debt.

For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?

Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.

We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's impossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.

And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.

Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:
I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

I just dont get how Homosexuality falls into history. Were homosexuals slave? no... Was there a huge homosexual civil war? no. Its a lifestyle not history. Its like trying to force our children to take history lessons about the history of S&M. You like dick i like vagina... no history lesson there.

^Gay rights issues frequent the news. Is anyone battling for "S&M" rights? There have been people killed because of their sexuality. And gays have made important contributions throughout history. I guess your solution is to ignore the issue and let children get their info from MTV.

In nature we don't see two animals of the same sex having any type of atypical relationship with one another. There is the case of the penguins at the zoo, but they were forced to live together after one of their mates died. Your example of the dog actually backs up statement. If animals are so indiscriminate when choosing what to have sex with then we would surely see two male Elk going at it in the woods. I raise rabbits for meat, and have never seen two bucks having sex and those damn rabbits are always ready to have sex. In fact if I put two males together, they might just kill one another.

I'm a conservative libertarian and don't care what two people choose to do with one another as long as it doesn't violate my rights, but why do my kids have to learn about their choice, their struggles, or their history? The same school system chose to only educate kids on American History after the Civil War. Which is more important, gay history, or American History prior to the Civil War?

Actually that is not true. Several studies have been done on this.... but go ahead and tell me that being gay is not a choice and that it is hard wired into your brain. Go ahead... I suppose that you would also tell me that for some reason that disproportionate number of gay males have a natural lisp too.... ya, go ahead and tell me that...

Anyhow, I think the entire country should have this fight and keep on fighting. If we fight hard enough and preoccupy ourselves with this CRAP maybe we won't notice the need to teach our kids Chinese not English.

"Alright then. Name them. Then please make reference to what their sexuality had to do with it."

What does anyone's sexuality have to do with anything? Was Einstein a genius because he was straight? No, but Einstein was forced from his country because of bullsheet bigotry. That was over half a century ago, sad we haven't grown much in our ability to accept our differences.

When we choose to ignore issues, we resort to ignorance (i.e. every post that Sam has published on this thread).

"Alright then. Name them. Then please make reference to what their sexuality had to do with it."

What does anyone's sexuality have to do with anything? Was Einstein a genius because he was straight? No, but Einstein was forced from his country because of bullsheet bigotry. That was over half a century ago, sad we haven't grown much in our ability to accept our differences.

When we choose to ignore issues, we resort to ignorance (i.e. every post that Sam has published on this thread).

Exactly my point! So why do they have to make it a point to include it in schools.

Can some one please show me where in this article it says anything about mandatory gay history of forcing inclusion of gay contributions in history?

All it says is that it will " prohibit districts and the California Board of Education from using textbooks or other instructional materials that reflect adversely on gay, bisexual and transgender Americans "

It doesn't say they must have a chapter on gays or anything like that, it just says there can't be textbooks discriminating against gays. What's wrong with that? So y'all that are up in arms would prefer books that teach kids something more like "f** them fa***t$" ?

"If you knew who I was, and you saw me at your local lake in a boat that ran out of gas or I had some other trouble, would you help me?"

Of course, I would let you borrow a paddle to ensure you made it back...Are you serious? Sam, anytime you are in TN you are welcome to join us and your money is no good. Just because we don't agree on every (or many) issue, doesn't mean I wish you any harm or ill will. My father-in-law is probably one of the most far right individuals you could ever meet. I get along fine with him.

Paul, I don't know where you have been the past few decades, but homosexuals were (still are) subjected to discrimination and violence against them. In the eighties, wasn't AIDS originally proclaimed as a homosexual disease (there is one instance of sexuality in history)? Teaching that someone was homosexual maybe irrelevant, but the gay rights movement OCCUPIES A PLACE IN US HISTORY. I don't agree with what the KKK did, but does that mean that I should just ignore the issue?

There is always racism. Always has been and always will be. Heck we have active racism built into current law regarding white people and jobs and education placement. AIDS is not taught in school as history. It is taught in health. In the eighties, AIDS was mostly in the gay community. It was ignorant to believe it was only there though. How does the gay rights movement occupy American history? Are only Americans gay?

Teaching this is only going to hurt the educational system. The Kalifornia school system is already bogged down by special interest requirements. When you hear of people talking about the liberal school systems. They are speaking about Kalifornia. Here is yet another opportunity for teachers to have to manage permission slips to send home to parents so the kids can op out of this. This is part of the reason why more and more parents are sending their kids to private schools. They have to dumb down the material to make sure everyone passes (including all the illegals that they are required to teach). This state continues down the tubes.

Sorry Paul, but I don't see the joke. I have yet to see as disrepectful a post as that on this forum. I don't know if that one flew under David William's radar or if he chooses to allow this sort of behavior on the forum, but I certainly don't see it as acceptable.

And your apparent claim that I've labeled you a racist or bigot is simply dellusional. I doubt you could find any post I've ever made that suggests I've ever made that accusation towards anyone.

How was it disrespectful JA? I was refering to the fact that because someone did something great, their sexuality shouldn't be a factor, to detract from the important things they do in history. It is of no relevance.

It does not. A gay person can get married and do anything that you or I can do. I don't remember Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus to get the right to scissor someone. I don't remember there being a gay only water fountain and I certainly don't remember the signs that say No gays and dogs allowed like they did the Irish. I do not see where this belongs in school. Especially when so many people absolutely disagree with it on top of all the other crap that gets put through the schools. Can you tell me the value of this? You want it, what is the value? Is this bit of knowledge going to help me get a job and compete with the doctors and engineers from other countries? What is the value added to my education? Now, what is the value lost in my education? What is the distraction factor?

This whole deal is exactly what is used to frame the public schools system as a failure and is another nail in the coffin of the public education system.